by Isaac Hooke
"I have no money," Ethan claimed. "I haven't been paid, yet."
Zarar turned toward the others. "He has no money. What do you think of that?"
"I say we send him back to Saudi Arabia," Fida'a joked. "He comes from an oil-rich country like that, and he has no money? Who does he think he is?"
"We don't need money," Suleman said, entirely serious. "This is our town. We take what we please."
"Now now," Abdullah came over, handing Ethan some Syrian pounds. "We are good Muslims. We pay for what we take. Ibrahim, go with him."
Ethan and Ibrahim made their way down the street, searching for a bakery. Since the location of the checkpoints changed daily, Ethan had to pull out his Android and activate the offline map app to orient himself. He searched the nearby points of interest, and realized the nearest bakery was the same one Kaleem had taken him to yesterday. That afforded him an opportunity...
"I'll meet you there," Ethan told Ibrahim, who had his own mapping app running. "I have to use the washroom." He passed the money to the teen.
"Wait, where's the bakery?"
Ethan pointed it out on the map.
"What if it's not open?" Ibrahim said.
"Then we'll find another one," Ethan said over his shoulder as he detoured down a side street.
In a few minutes he reached the lingerie shop he had visited with Kaleem the day before. He doubled-back, taking a quick surveillance detection route, and when he was certain neither Ibrahim nor anyone else had followed, he entered the shop.
The owner was the only one present that morning; he regarded Ethan uncertainly, his left eye seeming even lazier than usual, the lid barely open.
"Salaam," the man said cautiously. His dyed hair gleamed in the shop light.
"What is your name?"
"Mufid."
"Where is your son today?"
Mufid dropped his gaze. "He is not my son."
"The youth I saw hiding behind the counter? Don't lie to me. He has your features."
The shopkeeper swallowed. "He's only fifteen."
"He is a rebel," Ethan stated.
Mufid shook his head emphatically. "No he's not. He just writes a blog. That's all. He's not harming anyone."
"Blog?"
Mufid realized he had made a mistake. "I meant something else."
"What is the web address of this blog?"
"Please, I beg you," the shopkeeper fell to his knees theatrically and clasped his hands. "Please. Please. Take me, not my son."
Ethan sighed. "I'm not here to take you or your son."
The shopkeeper seemed uncertain. "You're not?"
"No." He helped Mufid to his feet.
"Thank you!" the shopkeeper gave him a hug.
"But there is something else you can do for me," Ethan said.
Mufid released him warily. "There is always a price."
"There is. I want you and your son to be my eyes and ears in this city."
The shopkeeper's expression became puzzled. "What is it you want us to do?"
"For starters, tag any municipal buildings with obvious ties to the Caliphate. I'm looking for government compounds, courthouses, repurposed schools, and the like. Be subtle while you're about it. Don't take pictures unless you're certain no one is watching you. Use wikimapia to look up the GPS coordinates. I'll come by in a week or so and retrieve the data. If you can put it on a memory stick, that would be perfect. Do you have something I can write on?"
Mufid seemed dazed, but he retrieved a pad from behind the desk. Ethan wrote down the username and password to one of his gmail aliases.
"We will use the draft folder of this account to communicate," Ethan said. "The messages must be encrypted. Do you have The Mujahid's Security?"
"No, but my son uses this."
"Good. He can teach you how it works. We'll exchange public keys in the draft folder eventually. Be aware of keyboard loggers when using the Internet cafes. Some of the computers might have screen recorders installed, too. Even The Mujahid's Security can't protect against those, which is why I don't want you sending me anything, not even your public key, until I hook you up with some anti-malware. Until then, if you must get in touch with me, use very vague generalizations."
Mufid stared at Ethan, not saying anything for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded incredulous: "You are a mujahid of the Caliphate. Surely you can acquire this knowledge on your own? Why do you need me and my son?"
Ethan shook his head. "I'm just a grunt to them. You and your son are in a far better position. You can talk to the residents, ferret out those who have seen Caliphate activity. I can't. If I ask questions, I draw attention to myself."
"Me and my son will draw attention to ourselves, too, if we're not careful," Mufid said. "The streets are full of locals paid to inform for the Islamic State."
"Then be careful."
Mufid crossed his arms. "What are you? MOIS? Al Mukhabarat Al A'amah?" The former was the Iranian intelligence agency, the latter Saudi Arabian.
"Let's just say I'm an interested party. And I will pay you for your help. Very, very well. In Euros, American Dollars, whatever currency you prefer."
"How much?"
"The equivalent of fifty thousand US dollars."
Mufid's eyes lit up, but he quickly hid his avarice and shook his head. "That is too low for what you ask. There is much risk involved. Now, five hundred thousand—"
"Fifty thousand," Ethan interrupted. "Take it or leave it."
"I could shut down my shop and leave town," Mufid said, the defiance thick in his tone. "You would never find me or my son again."
"You could, but you won't. You're not impressed with this so-called Caliphate. You want to see the jihadis pushed from Raqqa. As does your son. Which is why he publishes that blog you mentioned." And you want the money.
The shopkeeper seemed on the verge of some sharp retort but then he sighed instead. "All right. I will do this. For my son."
"Thank you."
Mufid's face hardened. "But when do I get the money?"
"When you deliver the data."
* * *
Ethan hurried to the bakery, which had a long queue of people as usual. He found Ibrahim in line near the middle.
"You don't have to wait like some commoner," Ethan scolded him. "Go to the front."
"But it doesn't feel right."
Ethan was fine with waiting, but he suspected Abdullah wouldn't share his sentiments, so he said, "Do it or we'll be here all day." Best to stay on the emir's good side.
Ibrahim obeyed, and while he went inside, Ethan lingered by the entrance.
He noticed a commotion across the street; a motorcade containing two Hyundai Tucsons and a Toyota Hilux stopped in front of an apartment building. AK-47s in hand, militants piled out of each vehicle, forming a defensive perimeter. Three of the mujahadeen went to the main door of the apartment and pressed a buzzer.
Ethan surreptitiously removed his Android phone from his cargo pocket and pointed the camera at the motorcade. He doubled-checked that the smartphone's sound was turned off and took some shots.
A moment later a Chinese man emerged from the lobby with two bodyguards, and the waiting militants enveloped them. He wore a white T-shirt and black slacks, with a blazer overtop. No headdress.
Ethan snapped a few more quick photos, keeping the phone close to his chest as the militants escorted the Chinese national to the closest SUV. A jihadi happened to look his way the moment Ethan lowered the phone, and the man waved. Ethan returned the gesture calmly, donning his best fake smile, and pocketed the phone at the same time.
Ibrahim joined him shortly afterward, carrying a pile of flatbread.
Ethan's heart was still racing in his chest as he grabbed half the bread and began the trip back to the checkpoint. If that jihadi from the motorcade had stopped him and made him reveal the contents of his phone, Ethan would have found himself in a slight bit of trouble.
There was nothing quite like intelli
gence gathering in the heart of enemy territory.
He loved his job.
fifteen
Ethan sat before an old Dell system in the computer room of the barracks. The place felt ovenlike, the fans of the computers pumping hot air into the cramped environment. Every last terminal was occupied by foreign fighters eager to use the building's lone satellite Internet. The hum of the fans was punctuated by the tap of keyboards and the occasional hushed voice attempting to speak over VOIP. Young men stood in a queue outside the door, waiting their turn.
The militant immediately to his left was involved in a Skype call. Ethan heard a garbled, robotic voice come from the man's headset—audio artifacts induced by the high-latency, shared connection. Ethan wondered how anyone could communicate like that. Indeed, for the most part, the fighter typed rather than spoke.
Ethan had plugged in his special USB stick, and was waiting for the anti-malware software to complete its cleanse. After several minutes the software reported that it had temporarily quarantined thirty-four threats, including a key logger, a screen tracker, and a sound recorder.
He ran the customized versions of notepad and Google chrome installed on the USB, then browsed to wikimapia and recorded the exact latitude and longitude of all the Islamic State buildings he could remember, and those he had marked on his phone. Also, using the pictures he had taken earlier, he typed up the serial numbers of the phones he'd compromised.
He logged into a shared gmail account he used to communicate with Sam and checked the draft folder. There were no messages. He loaded up The Mujahid's Security from the stick and encrypted all the text in the notepad instance. Creating a new draft message in gmail, he pasted the encrypted text.
He connected his phone to the computer via another USB port and uploaded the best photo he'd taken of the Chinese national. He encrypted it and attached it to the message, then saved the draft and logged out of gmail.
Next he installed the Regin malware. It would spread to all the other machines on the network, allowing the Agency to spy on everything the militants did in that room, and maybe elsewhere. He didn't have to worry about the DIA monitoring his own computer access when he came, because the anti-malware software he always ran at beginning of his sessions removed any local Regin instances. Not that it mattered if they monitored him—he had nothing to hide. Currently.
He restored the previously quarantined executables, returning the system to its earlier state, then wiped all the pictures from his Android phone and left.
* * *
Ethan sat with William and Aaron in the cafeteria, which also served as a rec room of sorts outside meal hours. Other militants would come there to type on laptops or study Qurans when they wanted to get away from their units.
"Any updates?" Ethan asked his fellow operatives.
"Did you hear the alarm last night?" Aaron said.
Ethan shook his head. "Slept like a baby." That wasn't entirely true, but he hadn't heard any alarms.
"Well, the journalists are free."
"Holy shit that was quick," William said.
"When I see an opportunity, I take it," Aaron bragged. "I'm not one to dawdle. Unlike you guys."
Ethan forced a smile. "Any problems?"
"Nope. The operation went off without a hitch. I didn't even have to kill anyone." He frowned. "But fricking journalists, I tell ya... they were French, you know. Kept asking me where the hélicoptères were. And I was like, yeah, sure, I came rappelling in on an MH-60 Black Hawk just around the corner. Finally they got it into their thick skulls that no helos were coming, and that they'd have to go into hiding."
"What did Sam say?" Ethan asked.
Aaron shrugged. "Haven't told her yet."
"Does she even know the journalists were here?"
Aaron was silent a few seconds. "No."
"I'll bet she'll be real happy when she finds out," Ethan said sarcastically.
"Why wouldn't she be? I did my job. What I was sent to do."
"I think she would've preferred that you had involved at least one of us," Ethan said.
"Are you sure it's not you who would've preferred that, you who claim to be the biggest lone wolf of us all? Listen, I discovered an opportunity and acted upon it. Ask for forgiveness rather than permission, right? It's how we get things done around here. Speaking of which, what have you done since we arrived? Oh wait, you must be too busy asking for permission. I remember when I used to work for the CIA. It took forever to get shit approved. I had like ten bosses above me, and each one had to approve my op before I could get the go-ahead. All it took was one chickenshit manager above me to veto the whole thing. Eventually it got to the point where I'd had enough. I started doing the ops while I was waiting for approval. And if my bosses didn't grant their consent afterward, fuck 'em. I got a helluva lot done."
"I'm guessing you had to ask for forgiveness often while working at the CIA."
Aaron smiled wolfishly. "Let's just say there's a reason I'm not working there anymore."
Ethan glanced at William. "Any news?"
"I've managed to recruit a few locals to act as my eyes and ears," William said. "It's not difficult. The Caliphate isn't well-liked here. Sure, the citizens openly sing the praises of the Islamic State, but once you take off the muj fatigues and get them alone you'll hear a different tune. Amazing the intel a few packages of illicit cigarettes will buy you."
Ethan thought of the fifty thousand dollars he'd promised Mufid and felt silly. Then again, he doubted William could acquire solid intel through the promise of cigarettes alone.
"What about you," William said. "What are you working on?"
"I've lined up a few locals," Ethan said. "And sent Sam the coordinates of some government compounds I've spotted. I should have more things lined up for her shortly."
"That's code for I got jack shit," Aaron mocked.
"I've also installed Regin in the computer lab," Ethan said.
"I already did that the first night," Aaron said.
Ethan stood. "Night guys."
* * *
Every morning, Wolf Company established a checkpoint at a different location. Ethan wanted to gather more intel on the Chinese national, but he had to wait until he was stationed a little closer. He could have potentially gone on a toilet break, and then commandeered a car at gunpoint, but the heavy road traffic prevented that from being any more feasible.
Each night he checked the draft folder of the gmail account he shared with Sam, and two days later he decrypted a message that read:
Identity of national: former Chinese nuclear scientist Shi Tou Mao. May be helping Islamic State construct a nuclear weapon. Can you prove the scientist's intent, and upon positive correlation, determine the fissile supplier and terminate the scientist?
Ethan left a return message:
Will prove intent and terminate upon positive correlation. If airstrikes are available, I have potential coordinates.
He doubted any sort of airstrikes were forthcoming. The West had performed a few limited bombing runs in Iraq, but so far Syria seemed off limits. Although if Sam leaked the coordinates to the Assad regime, there would almost certainly be a strike of some kind. Hopefully not a wildly inaccurate barrel bomb. Even so, before there could be any airstrikes Ethan had to confirm that the scientist actually lived in the building.
The next day Abdullah finally set up the checkpoint within a reasonable distance of the apartment. Ethan volunteered to retrieve lunch that afternoon from the bakery across the street from his target, but Abdullah made Zarar go with him.
When he reached the bakery Ethan let the big Afghan enter by himself. Ethan waited on the pavement outside, studying the apartment. The three-story tall building spanned half the block, with a couple of decorative palm trees near the entrance. All the windows were canopied in the proper Muslim style.
About a minute passed and he wondered where the motorcade was. He checked the time on his cellphone. It was almost noon. Either he'd missed the v
ehicles or they weren't coming that day. Maybe the pickup had been a one-time thing.
The big Afghan emerged from the shop and he and Ethan started back toward the checkpoint. Right then three militant vehicles pulled up on the opposite side of the street. Ethan glanced over his shoulder and watched the mujahadeen form the familiar perimeter. When the Chinese national and his bodyguards emerged, the militants escorted them to one of the SUVs and sped off. The chances were high that the scientist indeed lived in the building.
That night Ethan had a reply from Sam waiting in the draft folder of the gmail account.
No approval for airstrikes from HQS forthcoming. Prove the scientist's intent, and upon positive correlation determine the fissile supplier and terminate the scientist.
Ethan wrote back two words. The seemingly random characters of encrypted text spanned half a page, but when Sam decoded it the message would read: Will do.
Proving the target's intent would be tricky. Just because the scientist lived in the Islamic State and had an armed motorcade escort him from his apartment around noon everyday didn't prove anything other than that he was important to the Caliphate. That may have been a reason to terminate the man in and of itself, but as mentioned in her message, Sam wanted proof of the man's intentions. Ethan did, too. Gone were the days when he blindly killed for JSOC. He had developed a conscience after going to work for Sam. Taking on deep cover operations would do that to anyone, he supposed. He understood the enemy, but more so he understood how readily the White House had added relatively benign targets to the kill list in the past. Sam did, too, and was trying to distance herself and her team from that trigger-happy mentality.
Three days later when the checkpoint was finally situated close enough to the apartment once more, Ethan volunteered to retrieve lunch again.
"No, my turn today," Sab insisted.
"I have to use the toilet anyway. I'll pay!" Ethan raced off before Abdullah could make him take Sab with him.
While jogging, Ethan retrieved his phone and oriented himself with the offline map. He paused beside a couple of street vendors to make certain none of the members of Wolf Company were following him, and when he finally reached the bakery, the motorcade was already speeding off.